


Empire: Resource Planet B

by emudii



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Collaboration, Gen, M/M, Toraten
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-07
Updated: 2011-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-17 22:31:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/872707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emudii/pseuds/emudii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vegeta reclaimed Frieza’s entire empire as his own; now it’s time to wage war against others…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empire: Resource Planet B

**Author's Note:**

> Collaboration with Amarantines. Pilot sequence to a neo-empire AU. After the Cell Games, Vegeta strikes a deal with Gokuu: come back to life and help him reform the old Saiyajin kingdom, to keep Earth safe. Almost twenty years later, their families are still coping with this way of life...

“ _Bridge, report._ ”  
“ETA: ONE HALF—one fourth to deployment authorization.”   
   
The prince gave his own console a half-hearted glance; there wasn’t really anything of interest to him there, nor had there been any significant updates in the last few minutes. But being in countdown made it mandatory to hover like this. It was beginning to wear on his patience, a bit. Exhaling loudly, he stood back. “Very well.” And, with exaggerated purpose, turned on his heel and went to rejoin his ‘apprentice’ at the world map projection.  
  
Little red and blue dots littered the grid, marking their expected penetration points and strategic footholds. He felt as though he could already recite each set of coordinates, from memory. Waiting was definitely getting old. “Our ships will pass into the drop zone in an eighth.”  
  
“Would you be more excited if we were in one?” The dark slump that was Goten answered, without turning to look at him. Staring at the projection for the last eighth himself, the prince knew their irritation was very mutual. “There’s still time.”  
  
He would be lying if he said he wasn’t sorely tempted; however, being the senior ranked officer aboard had its drawbacks, clearly. His expression felt painfully, unnaturally neutral. “We can’t abandon the flagship,” he said, blandly. “After we transmitted this strategy, it would be bad for morale if we didn’t follow it too—not just to save a fourth, anyway.”

Drawing up the main grid just for something else to look at, the prince’s apprentice listened to the jokes and playful conversation being exchanged between the fighter pilots en route to the drop, remaining quiet for a moment. He was incapable of having a neutral expression of his own, so Goten pouted fiercely. “And after the line is set?”  
  
“A sixteenth, _max_ , after the line sets.” But, oh, how that sixteenth would gnaw at them both.  
  
This was not his first experience on the field, but it was theirs. After only a year of “training”, Goten could be called a success for just being here, but neither of them was counting yet. The younger man swiveled his chair as the radio chatter died down, filling the bridge with an odd silence.  
  
“They’ve made visual,” Goten murmured, switching to a manual projection from the lead ship.  
  
His arms crossed, fingertips digging anxious points into the muscle. Battle was at hand… And it was becoming increasingly difficult to curb his rising tension—especially when the air was thick with it, already. “And still no contact from the target?”  
  
“Channels are still clear,” the younger man confirmed, with a few others on controls double checking the observation. His fingertips pause over the keyset, thinking hard on the amount of time that had already passed since they sent out word. Any clear headed governor would have contacted the flagship already, or, at the very least, they would have caught any cries for reinforcements.   
  
Goten was moving again after that moment of frozen thought, readjusting his display board for private streaming. He bypassed the global-view default screen in a few codes, locking the new call to just this controller. “Oi, Chikku.”  
  
Still and green greeted him. But then, slowly, the view panned, bringing a shock of ash blonde and a familiar scowl onscreen. Chikku squinted, sight obscured undercover, but he wasn’t one to mistake that voice. “Goten? Bad timing, man. Whaddaya want?”  
  
With a quick glance behind him at the prince, Goten lowered his own voice for all their sakes. “We’re gettin’ the cold shoulder up here. Do you got any activity going on, or do people sleep during the day down there?”  
  
“No, they’re definitely awake,” came the hushed reply. Chikku looked off-screen briefly, as if to visually confirm this. “…And on the move. Might be a set up if you haven’t made contact yet.”  
  
If it was an ambush, though, then the fact that scouts had gotten through at all might be a calculated move as well. Depending on the timing, they might have known about the attack for days already, and that was big trouble. Ophidian ships weren’t slow moving by any means.  
  
Goten met the prince’s eyes briefly in a sidelong look, expression indicating how much he was holding back. Usually he didn’t bother to ask permission to speak, but this was war.  
  
Blue eyes narrowed, and he bit the corner of his mouth, the way he sometimes did when he was thinking hard. Without seeing it for himself, there was only so far to speculate on the counterstrike being formed; but this close to red line, he had to make a decision. Now.  
  
Giving the younger Saiyajin a nod, he turned and faced the rest of the bridge crew, expression grim. “New orders!” he barked. “Ready Battlegroups RED! No one moves without confirmation!”  
  
The deck exploded with instant action after just a second of shock—everyone was already familiar with RED and the coordinating orders that came with that single word from the prince. The control boards around Goten came to life with all operators sending out full stop commands to the front force, both onscreen and verbally to squad leaders.  
  
“— _shut it_ ,” Goten had just said into his own screen, making the sign for quiet with his fingertip. “And move to your secondary location, okay? …Right. _Out_.”  
  
The prince waited just long enough to hear the console operators call back their new values to Head Navigation: cutting speed and mobility in exchange for triple-reinforced shielding on the hull as well as charging up the weapon system—something that all forward force should be doing at this same moment. He returned just in time to see their scout signal out and the screen to roll back to global view. “Good check,” he said, quietly.  
  
Goten almost had time to flash him a grin, but the shriek of alarms on deck tumbled the thought from his head, if he’d thought. In an overhead system above the main view window, eight of twelve lights blazed, flooding the bridge with an eerie green glow—and in the peripheral, just behind the largest moon, a dark, moving blot against the star-map.   
  
“Cloaks,” the younger Saiyajin murmured, under the noise.   
  
The prince growled. A counterstrike, indeed. Those sneaky little bastards were going to force their hand early; but no matter—he’d already issued the order to actuate fire power. They were ready. Rushing back to the guard rail, he leaned over and yelled loud enough to transmit directly to all their subordinate ships. “Everyone switch to full scan! And stand by for jammer burst! On my mark, immediate authorization to open fire!”  
  
A cheer went up through the open fighter channel, and the sounds of hundreds of lock-ons tumbled after it, as the wealth of their forces made the jump to full scan. In a domino-fall, all screens around them flickered to black and green, plunging the bridge into half darkness. Officers behind him scrambled to their primary workstations, some working on pulling down their own semi-cloak in time for assault, some manning the main guns. The Ophidians hadn’t noticed their attention yet—even on full scan, none of their fighters were out, at least where radar could see them. And if that was the reason…  
  
“Vegeta,” it came, just barely above the talk and the hum of the jammers, already warm. Just the sound of his name slowed him down—so startling in such a place—hands clenching suddenly on the rail before he managed to turn and acknowledge those dark, gray eyes.  
  
“…Goten?”  
  
“Let me help,” he gestured with a tilt of his head backward, even though they were now only a foot or so away. So quiet that the prince read his lips rather than heard. “Okay?”  
  
 _Let me help._  
  
It was a simple enough request. But somehow, said like that, it felt much heavier than it ought to. Exhaling slowly, the prince regarded him carefully before letting his attention slide back out over the bridge—every station was fully manned and ready, already. There technically was no need for extra hands. But for the occasion… he didn’t see why he couldn’t reward him a little.  
  
The first battle always set the standard, after all.  
  
“…You have a strategy, don’t you?”  
  
With his back turned away from everyone else, his apprentice’s reaction went unnoticed by the rest of the bridge. His eyes lit up with a mischievous smirk, allowing himself to show all the plans he’d been hiding under his business face. Goten’s business face was often very thin.  
  
“I can show you,” he whispered, conspiratorially close. This had been the plan from the start, as far as the younger man was concerned. “… but I need a big gun.”  
  
His eyes narrowed at that, but there was no denying that his curiosity was piqued, now. Goten definitely knew better than to interfere with such an important moment, so… “For first strike?”  
  
Tipping forward and back on his heels was the only indication that Goten was nervous asking for this; it was a huge honor and maybe more of an indulgence than he ought to be entertaining. But his expression remained firm. “I can see them,” he said. “Without a scanner. I can get a good shot in to scatter their command.”  
  
“You do realize what you are promising, right?”  
  
That was no small boast. And as much faith as he normally had in Goten’s abilities—over anyone else—even he was obligated to a moment of scrutiny. Especially at a time like this. The bridge was tight around them, and the talk had given way to a tense silence, each one of the crew looking to them for the prince’s signal. With the enemy drawing closer, they would soon be out of whatever time they had left. Goten swallowed, and lowered his voice again.  
  
“If they are diverting full power to their cloaking shields, now is the only time we’d be able to hit the bridge directly, short of one of our guys smashing himself into it. You know I can do it.”  
  
He was biting the corner of his lip again, consciously breathing slowly. Such moments defined a man. And his ability to differentiate between sound tactics and self-admitted favoritism. The theory was sound, but it had just as much potential to become very bad for the both of them if Goten somehow didn’t follow through—he just didn’t have enough merit, on his own, yet, to support a mistake of that magnitude. “You’re only going to get one shot at this,” he warned, quietly, knowing that the other already understood their position as well as he did.  
  
Nevertheless, a brightness overtook Goten’s focused expression, before he could stifle it with good sense or manners. Precisely because he didn’t have a lot of his own merit, Goten pulling this off also had the potential to push him, at last, into the eyes of others as ‘reliable’. The younger Saiyajin nodded, clenching his fists at his side to avoid showing obvious excitement. “Which pit?”  
  
“…Take Alpha.” It was the riskiest call he’d ever made. So it might as well be the boldest, too.  
  
His apprentice took off to the main pit, lightning fast, barely even pausing to flash a toothy grin at him for the chance. Even as Goten launched himself into the chair, everyone on the bridge was still watching. With the decision witnessed by the entire crew, all eyes were on his back.  
  
The control panel was cold. No one had gotten permission to use alpha before Goten’s request, so he settled into the seat with a shiver from tail to nose. He brushed the keys and stick with gloved fingertips, thoughtfully, before ripping off both covers and grasping the controls barehanded… and flicking the manual start, on the very side. Stars and sky came into focus where the full scan map had been, and Goten breathed.  
  
Just like old times.  
  
Beyond the scope of the map, and even the stars, he saw them. Sensing their _qi_ wasn’t hard, exactly—Ophidians weren’t like Saiyajin, in the way that their presence burst into the mind’s eye, bold and alive and separated, like so many grains of rice in a dark bowl. Ophidians were more calm, like a wave, and tended to meld together into a singular organism when they were fighting for one purpose. He had to close his eyes to close in on the flagship, distinguished for him not so much by the difference in personality and strength, but by how that piece of their being was somehow brighter.   
  
Even with most hiding their power levels, the confidence and mastery of the members of the bridge lifted them out of the soup… where he could see them, at last.  
  
Behind him, everything was stillness—a single, bated breath. The prince observed this with a peculiar sensation of heaviness; his hands curled together atop the guard rail, locking tight as he tried to follow the blind movement of Goten’s focus, along the star field. The cross-hairs were drifting off-center, into the heart on an unremarkable cluster, according to the scanners. And yet… And yet he couldn’t bring himself to move. Gravity had become him.  
  
He couldn’t quite believe what he was witnessing.  
  
 _Goten, you…_  
  
Wandering focus stilled at the middle, with the controls in his hands stoppering themselves, as if the machine were directing the boy and not the other way around. Slowly, he pulled at the target, locking on to the one spot where they were, floating in the sea of so many. Goten didn’t dare look behind, even with his mind, for fear that he might lose this fragile moment of clarity—that space was a hollow tunnel, and when he stopped his aim on the spot, it was as easy as pushing a block into place. They were now connected.  
  
The controlled explosion of light flooded their bridge window, illuminating behind the full scan screen and momentarily graying it out. Goten was pushed back by the punch, opening his eyes only to see the beams rocket into space, like shooting stars, disappearing into the darkness.   
  
For several moments, there was nothing. Not even the sound of his own breathing. Behind him, awkward looks were exchanged. All the way up to the prince, whose mouth was set in a tense line. But just as someone finally stood, no doubt with the intention of breaking the silence, the report of an explosion boomed through the bridge, punctuated by an intense ring of fire, bursting outward from the center of contact.  
  
And just like that, the fighters exploded into action, rushing out into the screen and initiating fire on a wave of dim shapes, finally fritzing into view as their shields collapsed around them.  
  
Goten nearly collapsed into his knees as breath came back into his lungs. With his shoulders holding him upright, he held tight to the firing controls, and watched the Ophidian flagship tilt sideways in space. There was a ringing in his ears from the sharp disconnect, and he knew that they were dead.  
  
“Forward attack formation is breaking up!” someone yelled, behind him, so that Goten had to turn and look at the scanner screen to hear. “The frigates are pushing for landing at the back, your Highness!”  
  
Trunks pulled a light screen in front of him, sliding his fingertip along the pane until he zeroed on the information he wanted. The frigates all jumped to into relief, green against a scattered field of red and blue. “Set Delta Team!” he ordered, blanking it. “Don’t let them reach the airspace!”  
  
Delta Team broke off from the attack immediately, spreading their influence over the back portion of the Ophidian fleet with an array of fire from the underbelly. With their cloaking shields down, the enemy had shifted their defense to forward shields—with Delta streaking under their sides, the fighters that were sacrificed were nothing to what could happen if even one Saiyajin ship got through.   
  
With a furtive look at the prince’s back, Goten waited just a few seconds before deciding that if he had permission, he had it. With the control stick gripped, he swung Alpha south, flipping the switch back to partial-scan so that he could see who was who. Flights of red and a few of the green were already dipping into the planet line, with a wave of blue following close behind.  
  
He breathed, locking on to the furthest green blob with his senses as much as the computer, he dialed down his beam, taking his first shot at the rear engines.   
  
Meanwhile, behind him, Trunks was moving back to center bridge. If he had any comment about the continued use of Alpha, it was reserved, for the moment, in lieu of commands to Navigation. “Continue to the target and prepare to enter airspace!”  
  
Their navigator acknowledged the command wordlessly, punching in their new coordinates as fast as he could calculate them. Their ship lurched forward with sudden haste, felt by no one on the bridge except for the gunners, who saw the table of lights blur and shake with the speed. Forward guns fell silent as they picked up momentum, a black star chasing the white Ophidian frigates as they pounded against the outer rings of atmosphere. Gravity gave out from under them for just one moment as they made contact, the bridge hands clutching their chairs while Trunks stood firm.  
  
They were already there.  
  
“V— _Prince_!!” he heard, behind. “The flagship!”  
  
The main screen swapped out to Real Time, bringing the fallen Ophidian mother-ship into view. The massive hulk of it took up half the screen, even at this distance—the forward hull engulfed in flame as it hurtled, unchecked, toward the planet surface. If it impacted, at that size and velocity, the result would be catastrophic. It would completely negate the value of this world. Trunks wouldn’t allow it. “Maintain course! Don’t let it out of your sights!” he bellowed at Navigation. Then he turned without ceremony, striding toward the far end of the bridge and barking one more order. “Open a forward hatch! I’m going to take care of this myself!”  
  
It was the hatch closest to the pits that opened quickest, as several people on bridge attempted to follow the prince’s order at once. Everyone braced themselves for the brief gust of vacuum that embraced the deck as he made his exit, the airlock sealing behind just quickly enough to spare non-Saiyajin the lack of oxygen.   
  
One second, maybe two. Then the bridge exploded with purpose. Trunks’ second in command—the highest ranking officer without a royal crest—began barking orders to navigation, effectively slowing their descent to keep the prince close while still keeping them at a green zone distance. And a hull scan appeared where the tactical map had once been, now tracking the prince as he climbed up onto the top of the ship. The officer scrutinized it, holding up a finger while doing a mental countdown. Three… two… one… “Brace for shock!” he cried, diving for the railing just as a massive explosion rocked the room nearly sideways.  
  
On the screen, a gigantic blue wave shot out from overhead, slamming into the side of the mother-ship with such force that the implosion was visible. And the shock waves were rolling out two and three at a time. It was time to get the fuck out of dodge, now.  
  
The entire ship turned, lurching steadily around as it made a slow break for the true green zone. Their own safety was no longer guaranteed at this distance, and no matter what the screen said, the bridge was taking steady hits of smaller shocks—enough to keep everyone on their feet clutching guard rails and dodging anything that wasn’t nailed down.  
  
“Confirm the prince’s position off hull!” the officer yelled, bracing himself against the captain’s chair. “We need to pull back!”  
  
Several people rushed to respond; however, at that moment, an overhead alarm sounded, its three piercing wails the only warning before the locks on that forward hatch shot inward and spun. Seeing this, the Second made a frantic gesture over the railing. “Break away! Full acceleration! Everyone hold on!” The last words were nearly drowned out as the pressure dropped and the vacuum seal opened with a roar, letting the prince back inside.  
  
Combined with the sudden shift in speed, several people were thrown from their stations, colliding with walls, consoles, and even other watch standers. But environmentals were quick to stabilize, zeroing momentum in the bridge almost faster than their Commander could pull the emergency valves shut behind him. And suddenly, it was calm again.  
  
Clambering from the floor and from under each other, the crew as a whole seemed to pause a moment before resuming their stations. Everyone was busy looking around, at the scrambled view screen, at the fallen equipment, and to the young Commander; who, despite being directly hit by the shockwaves that could have destroyed the whole ship, stood in the middle of the bridge with little more than ruffled hair.  
  
Someone in their seat already called up the scanners again, meeting the silence with a strangled, hopeful shout: “Clear! We’re clear!”  
  
A small round of cheer went up around the mainspace, and even the prince, for once, actually appeared pleased. “Status!” he called, receiving his cloak and heading back up to the executive post, where he could meet with his Second. Immediately, all around the room, the console operators began running system tests and calling back their individual results. Shields, green. Gyro, green. Thrusters, green. Mounts… He actually paused, looking out over the railing, toward the nose, where Alpha sat. Waiting for its feedback report.  
  
The pause was heaviest when others started to slow down, the natural order of the results disrupted. It wasn’t until a small, metallic crash, and the flicker of the emergency lights that the data report from Alpha joined the complete pool. The very tip of a shadow sat up in the gunner’s chair with it. “Mounts are go,” Goten rasped, raising his hand for the count.  
  
 _Mounts are a go!_ The status was a triumphant echo, rippling back up to the top of the bridge. Trunks nodded, attention lingering over the gunner pit another moment, curious, before he turned and cleared his matrix. External scan was swapped for surface scan, bringing the topology of the immediate area into view; his hand moved to the top right of the screen, dragging and zooming. “Set a heading, 22.5 degrees. Prepare all systems to land!”

* * *

They were waiting for them, that’s for sure.  
  
With the demise of the Ophidian flagship and the echoes of light still bursting over the atmosphere after they had entered it, ground forces were already engaging their low flying fighters by the time they got there. Luckily, shields were strong through the landing sequence, biting through heavy atmosphere, and being chased by follow-up fire from the enemy frigates on their tail.   
  
Goten sat in the primetime seat as his stomach, and the _Phoenix_ , plummeted to the planet. Red beams shot past his windows, deflecting off the invisible shields that still held around him, but he gripped the armrests tighter, hands off the fire controls during landing. The cabin was supposed to be completely sealed, but the sensation of going thousands of miles an hour remained: breathing in deeply, and feeling ninety percent of the air evaporating before it got past his teeth.   
  
Behind him, there were sounds of crashing—keys and controls and anyone unfortunate enough not to have strapped in or anchored down. Even the air seemed to roar with the turbulence. And, just above that, the booming voice of the prince, ordering to engage thrusters.   
  
The world was rushing up, faster and faster and bigger and bigger, until… a jolt. Like a blow to the gut. And for a moment: complete weightlessness, as the forces of up and down collided.  
  
He opened his eyes, though he didn’t remember closing them, as the ship let out a harsh, mechanical sigh. As though gravity had been loosed in the bridge, his chair tilted backwards, slowly, reaching the cushioned parallel that he remembered as even. As it did, he heard even more tumbling people, curses, and some chuckling, before a roar of triumph went up overhead. They’d made it. Still, time—and battle—waited for no one.  
  
“SECURE NAV SYSTEMS! PRIMARY TEAMS TO THE ENTRANCE! FORM UP!”  
  
The call went up, blasted overhead and throughout the ship, to the entire crew. Immediately, every single one of the bridge crew struggled to their feet, clumping off into sections of six or eight. The nav crew took a few extra seconds, but each one fell into line more gracefully than the rest, important cargo under their arms and ready to march while he was still unbuckling his harness. Scrambling out of Alpha pit and into the confusion, Goten managed to stand, look around, and freeze in a matter of seconds.  
  
 _Where the hell do I go?_  
  
The control area overhead was vacant—the screen with the global view retracted.  
  
He was unranked and unclassed and, as far as he understood, unattached to any element. He had no assignment, except to receive instruction from the prince, who was now somewhere out among the chaos, probably. Hopefully. Directing traffic and tactics and Goten really had to find him, so that he wouldn’t get left behind. He didn’t want to be stuck here, all by himself.  
  
Awkwardly pushing through the stragglers in the back of the crowd forming, he vainly tried to stand on tip toe to get a better look over the tops of heads—but there was the problem, since all the ranked persons on the bridge were much taller than him. In the end, he crouched down instead, peering through the forest of black and blue under armour for a glimpse of white and red. And… _there_. _Gotcha_.   
  
Using his head, Goten smuggled himself against the wave toward the light, the ranks getting thinner until he reached Trunks, finally, straightening up behind him like he’d been here the whole time.   
  
“Prince! Goten reporting!”  
  
The other peered back at him, pale brows furrowing for a moment as he finally recognized him, although there was also a hint of relief, there. Probably in that he’d gotten it together enough to get the hell out of the way. “Stay behind me,” he instructed, turning back and gesturing with a wave for two of his higher ranked officers to take charge of the ranks. In front of them, the different groups lined up, sounded off, and readied at the gate.  
  
The second phase of the siege was at hand. As Goten watched, four, then five of those groups allowed their qi levels to raise above standard, then fly off in a single direction—north, toward the mountains and a clouded skyline. He inched toward the prince when the second of the two officers had taken control of his division, out of earshot. “Where are they going? There isn’t a strong enemy presence over there…”  
  
“We’re spreading a net,” Trunks replied, not taking his eyes off of the masses blurring into the horizon; there was one minute left to the next wave. “Once everyone is in place, we’re going to start driving the enemy forces into those locations we marked on the maps.”  
  
Nodding with numb agreement, there was a long pause before Goten actually remembered the maps at all. He was too focused on following the soldiers out into the distance, scanning the region for signs of high-levelled lifeforms, to remember.  
  
And then, it occurred to him where they were. “…Will we be going to the base then?”  
  
“Once we’ve successfully scattered their defenses, yes.” He was tucking his hair behind one ear, then reaching for a scouter and fastening it in place, there. He tapped it a couple of times, until Goten could hear the faintest buzz of communications, between the ground forces. “The reserve team, still onboard, was hand selected for that part of the assault.”  
  
His subordinate nodded, watching the subtle change of expression on his prince’s face between reports. He tried not to let his own excitement show, even if Trunks wasn’t really watching him. Goten, after all, had the security clearance to be here but none of the colors to show for it. He hadn’t been let in on the whole plan beforehand for this very reason, and Goten’s silent fretting about that fact had haunted the prince for a few weeks before this battle. Looking too pleased with himself could get him in trouble.   
  
Goten straightened his face to ask the question. “…does that include me, sir?”  
  
The prince didn’t look at him. “All of the teams have already been given their assignments for this invasion. You do not belong to any of them,” he reminded, lowly. But after some seconds, he amended: “You belong to _me_. So you will to wait on my word.”  
  
For whatever reason, Goten felt his ears burning. Acknowledging the command with a nod regardless of how much attention was paid to it, he carefully studied the arrangement of the teams on his digital board instead of replying right away.  
  
“… I wonder where he would be,” he supplied, after a pause, but mostly to himself. Looking backward, to the just twinkling stars under the day sky. “If he were here.”  
  
Trunks signaled the next wave into action, holding his response until the last of them cleared the  bay doors and went streaking toward the horizon. “He’d be where the enemy is thickest,” he allowed. “Soldiers tend to gather into a shield, around their leaders.”  
  
The silence was strange, suddenly. Tucking the board back into his belt pocket, the other Saiyajin let a curious expression fall over his lip before it curled into a satisfied smile. “That makes us the exception?” The wind behind them muted his words a little.   
  
“No Saiyajin warrior was ever content to watch others fight his fight for him.” There was an undeniable note of pride, there; his smile could not be contained. “That’s why we will always have the tactical advantage, even though our numbers are so small.”  
  
“Mmm,” Goten agreed, sneaking a sidelong look at his Prince. He felt the weight of the battle lift a little then, even though they were standing on the very edge of entering it—this being his first, the younger Saiyajin had been tense since they’d known. Seeing Trunks’ smile was the most genuine reassurance he’d ever received. He decided to return it directly, nudging their boots together.  
  
“… You ready?” he said.  
  
Prompted, the prince finally turned to look at him. He didn’t answer immediately; there was a critical weight to his gaze as he looked Goten over, as though also remembering these things. Still, after a moment, he gave the younger Saiyajin an encouraging pat on the back. “Just follow my lead, and this will be a fight like any other.”


End file.
